C object code file shows string values in plain text

I use gcc (on Ubuntu) to compile a c program that had few string values that I don't want the end user to know. Like strings used in authentication , a passcode file path / passcode etc. but when I compile the program the object file has these string values in readable (text) format. there are other machine only readable characters but these strings are also present in the file. Is this expected ? is there a way to tell the compiler not to print the values as plain text. I thought of having the strings encrypted within the program, but that looks like over engineering.